Why Power Protection is Important

Joe — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:46:00 GMT

We all know that a UPS is important but recently we have seen customer network rooms that concern us. It should be considered standard practice that all servers and networking equipment be protected by a UPS with automatic shutdown. This allows the equipment to shut down gracefully while using battery power. This prevents data loss or corruption and ensures a smooth reboot when the power returns.

We all have had a bad experience with a server that had a bad power crash, failed hard drives, failed raid controllers, blown power supplies, lost motherboards and of course our all time favorite, corrupted Exchange databases.You don't need hours of battery functionality because 80% of all power outages are less than 20 minutes long. But you do need automatic shutdown configured on all servers. In the past, we used serial cables but now there is a simpler solution. Install an SNMP card into the server which uses a network connection for the server shutdown software to communicate with the battery backup UPS. An added side bonus is that the card allows alert notification via email. That way you are always aware of UPS status, including power outages.Reminders:

· Be sure to configure the email address for alert notifications to be sent to a distribution list, instead of a single person

· When possible, have the UPS and the servers connected to the same network switch

· Be sure the server/UPS switch is powered by the UPS

· Be sure to provide a network cable or patch cord for the UPS – it does not come with the card

· Be sure to set the shutdown time early enough so that the servers have time to do a graceful shutdown. As we all know this can take as long as 10 minutes on some systems. Five minutes after the power failure is a good safe time.

· Be sure to check the red battery status LED on the front of the UPS anytime you are onsite. The batteries only last about 3 years before needing replacement

More spam and junk mail than before

Joe — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:01:00 GMT

Since this is my first blog post, I'll take the liberty of using some excellent content my colleague wrote recently and paste it in here. Marcus Solorio, our General Manager, realized he had seen much more spam and junk mail in his own daily computing life in the past few weeks. Then he heard the same thing from many of our clients. Our anti-spam solution, Postini, confirmed it all today. Here's the story, as written by Marcus to all of us internally.

Many of our clients have noted that it seems they have received more spam and viruses than they ever remember. They realized this from the notifications that Postini sent them when it "picked off the bad stuff". It seemed that there was so much stuff getting quarantined, that the notifications themselves began having a "spam effect" by filling up users mailboxes. We can turn those notifications off, and have done so at some clients' requests. Other clients would rather see/feel that the service is hard at work. Either way, there has been a noticable "up tick" in this spamming activity.

(Ed. Note : Postini described the situation in their most recent threat advisory : "Spam volumes set an all-time high in June", "July was the most active month for virus attacks in over two years", "...volume of attacks three times larger than any other time in last two years", " ... new attack still underway generating over half a billion virus-infected messages..." )

This increased problem is being caused by a growing number of botnets (networks of compromised PC systems around the world being used by spammers to try and overwhelm all the anti-spam solutions in place at this time). The problem is a living, breathing animal that just keeps getting bigger. The best solution is one that is not tied to a one-time purchase of hardware or software, but rather something that acts as a "moat around your castle". That moat needs to constantly get deeper and wider and we believe a gateway-level service such as Postini still offers the best protection.

If you have "felt" this increasing amount of junk/spam and possibly even the viruses that go along with them, you need to solve the problem !! Postini is the solution we offer and you can find out more by calling 888-LANLOGIC and speaking with Real People, that can provide Real Support.

I would be remiss, as your trusted IT advisor, if I did not make this point crystal clear. The bad guys are out there and they are putting in a concerted effort to hijack systems, grab personal information, etc.It reminds me of the theme song for the hit TV show, "Monk"..." It's a Jungle Out There!" :-)

Joe's Blog

Why Power Protection is Important

More spam and junk mail than before